November 2012

The polls say it is a close race, but what does Google say? Or Facebook? Or Twitter? Can you use these (in some ways) more populist tools to learn anything about voter sentiment?

MediaBistro highlighted a study from StateTech magazine that highlighted five races — the gubernatorial races for Louisiana, California, Ohio and Texas, and the Chicago mayoral race — where the winners had more Twitter followers than their opponents. The graphic then went on to point out that President Barack Obama, as of Oct. 18, had more Twitter and Facebook followers than Mitt Romney. That’s not particularly surprising, given that President Obama was a visible early adopter when it came to campaign social media.

So President Obama has more clout on social media — also, literally, more Klout with a score of 99 to Romney’s 92 — but there are other techy metrics to muse about. Google searches of “Obama” turned up customized search links about the president when users then searched for “Iran,” “Medicare” and “gay marriage.” Meanwhile searches for “Romney” did not turn up related links — a strange quirk of Google’s algorithms.

Larry Kim, a marketer at WordStream, wrote that he suspects that more people are looking up Obama’s stance more often, which he said could be a measure of how engaged Web users are with the Obama campaign. In fact, Kim said that online engagement metrics indicate Obama will win “by a landslide,” based on a read of Web sentiment and the pure amount of money both campaigns have spent on online advertising.

Watchdog groups are accusing a House committee that investigates wasteful government spending of apparently using taxpayer funds to produce a campaign video attacking President Barack Obama. The video was produced by House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). The one-minute video criticizes Obama for the cost of state dinners and was posted to the committee’s YouTube channel.

It has made its way through Twitter and conservative blogs over the weekend. “It is so far beyond the pale. I think it is clearly an ethics violation,” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It is one of the most outrageous abuses of official resources I’ve ever seen.” CREW plans to file a complaint, Sloan said. When asked if taxpayer funds were used to create the video, committee spokesman Seamus Kraft said in an email that “the committee’s video presentation is fully consistent with House rules and did not incur any additional taxpayer expenditures for its production.” According to Paul Ryan, an election law and ethics attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, the video amounts to an “electioneering” campaign ad — it supports or opposes a candidate even though it doesn’t explicitly say vote for or against that candidate. It falls short only in that it wasn’t broadcast on television.

Federal regulators are poised to ease ownership restrictions on major-market media outlets in what could be a boost to some big players in the struggling newspaper industry. After two failed attempts to loosen its rules, the Federal Communications Commission is expected by the end of the year to approve a new proposal that would allow newspapers and television or radio stations in the 20 largest markets to consolidate. And unlike previous battles, there is little opposition this time to easing the so-called cross-ownership rules.

A decade of Internet growth, fast-changing technologies and plunging newspaper revenues — along with the nation's focus on recovering from the Great Recession — have altered views. Few people seem to care much if newspapers and television stations hook up in the same metropolitan area. That could be a boon for a handful of firms, including Los Angeles Times parent Tribune Co., as well as a relief for the FCC, which is trying for a third time in 10 years to loosen rules that limit media consolidation. The less-contentious atmosphere stems partly from the decision of some key media companies to sever their broadcast businesses from their lower-valued newspaper units.

With less than 24 hours left before a pivotal presidential election and the end of an exhausting, often maddening campaign season, you couldn’t blame attendees at GigaOM RoadMap for being a little sick of government. But Jennifer Palkha, founder and executive director of Code for America, urged those in attendance to consider how good technology design can encourage a generation to become re-engaged with politics. “How would society be different if we felt the same way about government that we do about our iPhones or Android phones?” Palkha wondered, arguing that citizens are more likely to feel involved with their local government if they don’t feel like their technology services cause more problems than they solve.